It has been a little while since I have posted a piece of rhetoric on here, so I decided the time had come to do it again. The subject of this commentary happens to fall on marijuana once again. I have gone over the societal standards with the plant and the history of the debate. I shall not bear another argument like that on here so I will shift it to the pure enjoyment and pleasure that it brings me. If you are against marijuana, maybe reading this will help you think a little more and come up with a more arguable debate.

There are many reasons that people smoke marijuana, to escape, to get high, to feel whatever. I’m not entirely certain since every high is different for everyone. For me, it is something that is particularly difficult to explain, but I will attempt to do so nonetheless. Marijuana for me is three things, a social lubricant, a destroyer of mental blocks, and a way to experience life the way it should be experienced. If you are asking questions about my reasons, let me explain one at a time.

I believe marijuana is a social lubricant because it puts everyone you happen to be smoking with on the same level as you, even if you are possibly at a place of higher intellect and reasoning, everyone is equally the same. If you happened to be smoking alone (an activity I rarely partake in) it still is a social lubricant because you feel comfortable with yourself (really comfortable) and you accept the fact that you are here and now and nothing in the past nor the future has any real bearing on you at that time. Time doesn’t exist when marijuana takes effect, it could be one minute or one hour, it wouldn’t matter. In social settings with multiple people or just one other person it takes everything to a level of pure relaxation, that you are comfortable with whomever you are with and whoever you are with that person.

Marijuana destroys mental blocks. I know this because I record my smoking sessions for later reference and study. From my experiences, there are no holds barred when you are talking to someone and pot kicks in. you can talk about any stupid topic or deepest secret and everything seems to be natural and free flowing. There are no discrepancies when I smoke because I usually speak my mind when I am sober, but when I am high, (and many people will agree) I will rattle off any thought in my head, regardless of the offense or backlash it might generate. This is because I have a strong will against censorship, even if it is something that might be hurtful and even though it is just normal speech. I will never, however, say anything that would offend my own sense of decency. I do have decency, even if people won’t believe it.

The majority of the things I say are usually a mix of jokes, philosophy and mass amounts of vulgarity. Why the last part? Because I am a huge fan of swearing, especially the really sensitive words like “cunt”. If this offends people, oh well. That’s just me. Marijuana can either help you cover yourself better or (in my case) knock down all forms of filters and let the truth of your personality seep through.

Also I am free to think about anything I want and I write it down or record it because I might not remember it otherwise. I have come up with some pretty funny routines whilst stoned, also discretion on subjects that I usually skirt around I dive right in and just ramble on and on. I have several composition books and cassette tapes full of ideas, random thoughts, jokes and other such things I came up with or rediscovered when I was stoned. It might dissolve your short term memory for a brief time, but my long term memory is enhanced to a point that’s ridiculous…that is if I can concentrate while I am eating chips.

Life. Life and experiencing it is a big thing for me while I am either under marijuana or sober. I believe we only think about what’s happening next. We never are here, in ourselves and at the present time. We pass by everything with a fleeting disregard for their seemingly small importance. You eat food, you may find that it tastes good and that it is nourishing, but you never experience the food. Anyone who has been really stoned will agree, when you eat food, you are amazed; you are absolutely stunned how amazing the weed makes things taste. The marijuana does not make the food taste like that; you just overlook the taste when you are sober. The marijuana just enhances what is already there, it isn’t created, it just makes you pay attention.

The same goes with sights, sounds, sensations and smells. Marijuana just enhances what is already there, you just happened to overlook it initially when you pass it by in your everyday life. When you stare into a fire (be it a campfire or just a candle) you see a fire and you can become transfixed by it, letting your eyes lose focus on everything else. While under the power of marijuana, that intensive stare you give that fire gets more and more concrete. You only realize how long you have kept your eyes open when you blink again for the first time and realize that all of the moisture has been drained from your eyes.

I have never been a fan of how marijuana smells, however, when I am already high, and smell marijuana (not the smoke, the actual thing) I can smell the sweet odor that emanates from it. That is what I miss when I dismiss the initial smell of the plant, I miss the undertone that is always there, and I just forget to observe it. Marijuana slows down your reaction time because you aren’t just jumping to the next second, you are experiencing the second you are already in and will get to the next one when it comes. I record my findings on tape or on paper because this is how life is supposed to be seen. As Aldous Huxley reported about his mescaline experience in “The Doors of Perception” it was as if he was seeing the world the way it was, and the way it was meant to be seen. He could see (he described as such) flowers breathing.

“As I stare at the rose bush I have been growing for the past three years, I can really appreciate the beauty of the thorns, the slender arcs that protect my plant from other elements. I see the curls of the rose pedals and the crimson color of the buds as they crest and open in the evening dew; I see the beauty that I seem to always overlook as I pass them in my morning routine. It’s tragic that I take such a wonderful thing for granted, never appreciating such things until they are in peril and need my help. Roses. My beautiful red and pink baby roses.”

The above passage in quotes I wrote a couple weeks ago while stoned and beside my garden. Some of the things I write can be really stupid later on, but every so often, I believe I come up with something very profound and intuitive. Not long after that I came up with a saying that I believe holds a lot of merit and I offer this now as advice to people as part of my personal philosophy.

It is: “People are afraid about exposing their true selves to the world. Don’t worry about how the world will react. Just do it and watch the world react.”

Part is the marijuana loosening the barriers placed in my head through years of conditioning, and the majority of it is just my thoughts rolling off my tongue or out of my pen. There are no holds barred as I have iterated before. And I will reiterate again, marijuana for me is three things, a social lubricant, a destroyer of mental blocks, and a way to experience life the way it should be experienced.

I hope my venture into my marijuana has helped me see the world more in its true fruition and I hope you will see the world just as I have, with help from marijuana or not. That is up to you. That is it. Until next time.